Five innovative essays demonstrating how Aristotle's biology is an integral part of Aristotle's understanding of the universe.

Demonstrates that Plato and Xenophon ought to be regarded less as rivals and more as engaged in a dialogue advancing a common goal of preserving the Socratic legacy.

Argues that the Divine Comedy dramatizes the risks and rewards of competing narratives, or different ways of reading.

Offers a new perspective on the relationship between religion and the creation of the first Chinese empires.

Counters the long-standing, solemn interpretation of Plato’s dialogues with one centered on the philosophical and pedagogical significance of Socrates as a comic figure.

Tells the story of Bavaria’s acquisition of ancient Greek sculptures that rivaled those acquired by England from the Parthenon.

Dante as protector and purifier of the Church.

Describes a Platonic personal spirituality based on reason that is readily accessible to people today.

Provocative reinterpretation of Plato's Symposium.

Examines the interplay between reading and writing in the works of Petrarch and Dante.

Explores the rhetorical functions of torture and the witnessing of torture in both classical texts and contemporary contexts.

In Boccacio's Decameron, Cervigni sees a parodic echo of the circles of Dante's Divine Comedy, and asks whether Bocaccio envisions the voyage of the brigata as similar to Dante the Pilgrim's journey toward the center, first the abysmal center of Lucifer, then towards the highest center, God.

Addresses the implications of a document found in the Archivio di Stato di Siena which affirms a connection between Farinata degli Uberti, a Florentine conspicuously encountered by Dante the pilgrim in Inferno 10, and the Sienese Ghibellines with whom he and his fellow Florentine Ghibellines joined, in an alliance which produced the Sienese victory at the battle of Montaperti in 1260.

Explores Dante’s love of books.

Addresses Jacoff’s own discomfort with Dante’s reiteration of the deicide charge against the Jews in Paradiso 7 and elsewhere.

Argues for a reading of the Poetics in light of the Metaphysics.

An anthology devoted to the intellectual developments that led up to the philosophy of Plato.

Explores the lyric context of Inferno 5.

Raises the radical question of how Dante’s understanding of poetry shaped his theology, his ethics, and, more generally his sense of the organization of knowledge or encyclopedia.

Argues that critical comments appended to early printed editions of Petrarch’s Rime sparse inflected the reception and understanding of Petrarch’s vernacular poetry in Renaissance Europe.

Explores Aristotle's theory of the causes that give rise to stasis ('civic disorder'), and provides an original and systematic account of his understanding of political justice and friendship.

Examines and evaluates Socrates' role as an educator in Plato's dialogues.

Explores the nature and significance of Petrarch’s indebtedness to Dante in the Rime sparse.

Interprets Plato's Charmides as a microcosm of Socratic philosophy that presents Plato's vision of the life of critical reason and of its uneasy relation to political life in the ancient city.

Argues that Plato's dialogues contain a surprisingly neglected account of Socrates' education about the love of noble virtue and that recovering this education could help broaden and deepen liberalism's moral and political horizon.

Freccero argues that the Paradiso may be considered a medieval version of science fiction.

Argues that Aristotle's writings about the natural world contain a rhetorical surface as well as a philosophic core and shows that Aristotle's genuine views have not been refuted by modern science and still deserve serious attention.

Traces the importance and influence, in the wake of Tiberius Claudius Donatus, of Servius' Commentaries in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, especially on the magisri, the grammatici, and the mythographers.

A comprehensive examination of the meaning, history, and evolution of the basic notion of "literature" from antiquity to the seventeenth century.

Leading scholars of classical rhetoric address contemporary topics in Greek rhetoric and oratory.

Presents the Nicomachean Ethics as a work of political philosophy, emphasizing the interplay between its practical political concerns and its underlying philosophic perspective and arguing that it is ...

Presents a popular introduction to Virgil's Georgics for the general reader.

Shows that the dialogue in Plato's Phaedo is primarily devoted to presenting Socrates' final defense of the philosophical life against the theoretical and political challenge of religion.

This book provides proof of the existence and explains the significance of planned alignments between classical temples and oracle sites over a wide range of territory, pointing to an astrological system ...

In this new interpretation of Plato's Phaedo, Paul Stern considers the dialogue as an invaluable source for understanding the distinctive character of Socratic rationalism. First, he demonstrates, contrary ...

This volume explores the significance of old age in Greek and Latin poetry and dramatic literature, not just in relation to other textual and historical concerns, but as a cultural and intellectual reality ...